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Yondai
Yondai is the second shounen manga Wyvern 0m3g4 attempted to write in his youth; placing it between its predecessor, Isamu Koga, and its successor, Nephilim. Yondai was a story that centered around main protagonist, Ka, a twelve year old boy who's considered weak and too young to be capable of anything by his fellow villagers. As a result, he develops a strong desire to become like the world's greatest hero, Ku. His adventures truly begin once he encounters a young girl named Fu and the two agree to travel the world together in pursuit of their dreams. The rest of the story unfolds as Ka and Fu meet new friends (like Mizu and Tsuchi,) fight past enemies and obstacles, and grow over the course of their group's travels. Like Ismau Koga before it, Yondai was ultimately abandoned by Wyvern a while later. Unlike Isamu Koga however, Yondai is the first manga Wyvern has worked on where he put more effort into developing his characters and plot, albeit the setting was still largely undeveloped during the manga's brief run. Having come after Isamu Koga, which was conceived some time around 2003, it may be safe to assume Yondai was first thought up and developed during 2004 or 2005 (when Wyvern was 13/14 respectively.) Plot The basic plot of the manga is explained through an introductory narration Wyvern had wrote down while developing Yondai: Judging from the narration jotted down by Wyvern in his youth, it appears the plot involved a mighty clash between ultimate good and evil in the forms of two warriors, Ku and Aku, and how the defeat of Aku created a new era within the world's history. With Ku's death, and after an untold length of time had passed (it is assumed to have been for roughly one hundred years or so,) the era of peace created by Ku gave way to more hardship and misfortune as the people of the world gave in to their lesser impulses once more, and as Aku's rebirth drew near. As Ku passed away, he left behind a vague message referring to the numbers one and four, which were meant to refer to the destiny laid out for the four protagonists, Ka, Fu, Mizu and Tsuchi, and their roles in shaping the world as they grow and mature throughout the story. As for the protagonists themselves, they, like certain other characters planned for Yondai, would come under the possession of elemental powers (mostly those associated with their name,) and use them to combat the antagonists they meet along the way. As they grow in strength, Wyvern had planned that should the manga ever get to that point, the protagonists would learn how to fuse their elemental abilities to create new powers, which would harken back to Ku's mysterious prophecy. And while the ending of the story was never fully thought out at the time, it seems the plot may have been leading to Ka and his friends eventually growing strong enough to either become the reincarnation of Ku, or invoke his powers to defeat the returning threat of Aku. Characters *Ka *Fu *Tsuchi *Mizu *Yami *Hikari *Ku *Aku Trivia *The manga's name is a mistranslation error on Wyvern's part, due to his young age and inexperience with Japanese at the time, as well as the faulty translation websites he had used to derive the manga's name from. Yondai was originally meant to combine the words "yon," meaning four in Japanese, and "dai," which Wyvern was lead to believe meant element(s.) Therefore, the original intent behind Yondai's name was to translated out as "Four Elements" in Japanese, which would refer to the four main protagonists of the story and their powers. *While the manga nowadays would be correctly labeled under the fantasy genre, due to its combat related abilities and overall content, Wyvern had originally referred to Yondai as a horror manga while working on it, because of "spiritual elements." *Despite deeply loving the plot, characters and abilities he had been working on for Yondai, and the fact he had faith in its development, Wyvern would inevitably discontinue his work on it. Unlike Isamu Koga, which was shelved due to lack of interest, distractions and a loss of faith in the project, Wyvern chose to stop work on Yondai as it was being developed around the same time Avatar: The Last Airbender, which also heavily featured elemental powers and combat, as well as an adventure and action story centering around a small group of children as they fight against evil and come into their own. Out of fear and worry that Yondai would be branded as an Avatar ripoff for being written after Avatar's debut, and because Wyvern hadn't the heart to completely rewrite a story he had fallen in love with, he came to the decision to stop writing Yondai and focus on a new concept for his manga. External Links Avatar: The Last Airbender - Wikipedia article about Avatar: The Last Airbender; the American animated television show that strongly resembles Yondai, and lead Wyvern to discontinue the manga Site Navigation Category:Stories